CAPIC Toronto Chapter presents:

The Xposé 2022 Speaker Series

CAPIC is pleased to announce the Xposé 2022 Speaker Series. Two days of talks will be taking place in the gallery space throughout the run of the Xposé 2022 exhibition. The exhibition will be mounted from May 11th to May 22nd, 2022, at the Papermill Gallery at Todmorden Mills Heritage Site in Toronto.

Join CAPIC Saturday, May 14th, 2022 from 2-4pm for talks from two fine art photographers: Michelle Huisman and Thomas Brasch. Both will present on their journeys to becoming lens-based artists, career transitions, and their respective practices.

Michelle Huisman

On Coming back to Photography

Join Michelle Leone Huisman as she talks about her experience of coming full circle back to photography. Learning from Professor Barbara Astman at Ontario College of Arts and Design about alternative processes in 4^th year University was an influential highlight of her appreciation of unique creative processes. This experience led to selling her thesis project to Polaroid. After graduating from Ryerson University (renaming in process) Photographic Arts with Honors, Huisman left the Toronto area and started new business and creative adventures in Vancouver. Since that formative time, she has maintained an avid interest in alternative photography processes. After using her photographic background to support her set decorating and interior design businesses, she has come back to embrace her passion for alternative printing processes in fine art photography. This resurgent interest led to a wonderful introduction to Bob Carnie in 2019. Please join her as she talks about her experiences outside of photography and learning a 19th Century printing process called tri-colour gum bichromate over palladium. 

Michelle Leone Huisman is an award-winning fine art photographer from Vancouver, BC who seeks out beauty in everyday surroundings. 

The pandemic has inspired her to create two exhibitions. The first An Unexpected Collection features photographs of spoons broken during the 7pm cheer for first responders and has shown across Canada. The current exhibition Global Pandemic presents photographs of discarded face masks juxtaposed with objects from nature and paired with children’s fables. 

Huisman uses a 19th Century printing technique called tri-colour gum bichromate over palladium. The timelessness, craftmanship and originality produced, resonates with her approach to fine art photography. This technique is reputed to maintain its quality for more than 500 years. She chose this technique out of a sense of archival responsibility. The enduring quality of the print ensures these stories can still be told for generations to come. 

Working with and learning from photographic printmaker Bob Carnie has transformed Huisman’s photography experience. The process has added new shades of context and meaning to these collections.

www.michellehuisman.com

Thomas Brasch

The Business Behind the Practice: Notes on Sustaining a Career as a Lens-Based Artist

Thomas’ style of lens-based abstraction is multi-layered, and provides a new narrative to how we can see conventional pictures from a new perspective through the use of powerful aesthetics. However, creativity only seems to be 20% of the work. The other 80% of a photography career is the business and promotional elements. Thomas will share his personal career journey, his successes and failures, and provide useful suggestions on how to make your mark without breaking the bank (too much).

Before embarking on his second career as a lens-based artist, Thomas Brasch (B.A., B.Ed., MBA) devoted thirty years to education (secondary school: sciences, French, and special education). Completely self-taught in analogue and digital photography, he is able to showcase his perceptions of beauty, turning the real into the the surreal. With a background in sciences, languages, education, and business, he is able to blend the skills he has learned and apply them to his artistic practice.

https://thomasbrasch.com